Thread: DAVOS, be scared, inane immigration concerns (see bottom)

Where to start? A bunch of billionaires at a Swiss ski resort, figuring out ridiculous, pie-in-the-sky fantasies of ways to meddle in your economy.

The very last section is about the damage countries incur when their citizens LEAVE, and go to the West. So then they can borrow money against the remittances they receive? So they get to borrow money because they are getting a windfall of foreign cash? Baaaaaahh




I'll wait for more news before I dissect this monster born at Davos.



note: Why are billionaires, and millionaire, druggie, rock stars always out championing causes that will cost the poor guy, while their cheap asses wont even leave a tip? Screw Bono.






http://news.independent.co.uk/world/pol ... 341967.ece



UN unveils plan to release untapped wealth of...$7 trillion (and solve the world's problems at a stroke)
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 30 January 2006
The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.

At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an international pollution permit trading system which, the UN claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.

Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices. "The gains in terms of development would outweigh those costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher than what we would have to pay for getting the financial markets to lend the money."

The UNDP is determined to ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.

It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle global warning, poverty and disease, based on working with the global markets to share out the risk.

These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF) to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing money against pledges of future government aid.

The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.

In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This shows how we can equip people and countries for a new global economy that combined greater prosperity and fairness both within and across nations."

The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power of the markets:

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.

* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the debts against the income from stable parts of their economies; net gain $2.90trn.

* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.

* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.

* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.

* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower interest rates; net gain $22bn.

Professor Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a greater need for collective action.

"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment. Without government intervention, firms and households have no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public finance system would force countries to acknowledge the external damage their policies had, "the most important being global climate change".

Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list. It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit their targets under the Kyoto protocol.

But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn that it believes the system would deliver over time.

"We are dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private entrepreneurs step forward."

But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.

Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation, said it left unanswered questions over how these markets would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance. The point is how you distribute the benefits."

He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in the Eighties.

He said a pollution trading regime had the potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.

"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up. Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere, the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."

He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits could end up permanently depriving poor countries that joined the system further down the road.

International problems - and solutions

PANDEMIC DISEASES

Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.

SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb spread of malaria.

PARIAH STATES

Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.

SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.

SAVING: $22bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.

Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of GDP would unlock $140bn a year.

NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined with debts with national and international lenders.

SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow needed funds during the hard times.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

SPECULATIVE INVESTORS

Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes by the big global investors that means money can leave as soon as it arrives.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies" against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked havoc across South-east Asia.

SAVING: $2,900bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.

GLOBAL WARMING

Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live with lethal storms and floods.

UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than just setting targets.

SAVING: $3,620bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to. Also agree global airline tax.

BRAIN DRAIN

Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine out 10 professionals have left.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets against the money workers send home. The capital would be used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would discourage people from leaving.

SAVING: $31bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that migration of professionals causes.

The most potent threats to life on earth - global warming, health pandemics, poverty and armed conflict - could be ended by moves that would unlock $7 trillion - $7,000,000,000,000 (£3.9trn) - of previously untapped wealth, the United Nations claims today.

The price? An admission that the nation-state is an old-fashioned concept that has no role to play in a modern globalised world where financial markets have to be harnessed rather than simply condemned.

In a groundbreaking move, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has drawn up a visionary proposal that has been endorsed by a range of figures including Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate.

It says an unprecedented outbreak of co-operation between countries, applied through six specific financial tools, would slice through the Gordian knot of problems that have bedevilled the world for most of the last century.

If its recommendations are accepted - and the authors acknowledge this could take years or even decades - it could finally force countries to face up to the fact that their public finance and growth figures conceal the vast damage their economies do to the environment.

At the heart of the proposal, unveiled at a gathering of world business leaders at the Swiss ski resort of Davos, is a push to get countries to account for the cost of failed policies, and use the money saved "up front" to avert crises before they hit. Top of the list is a challenge to the United States to join an international pollution permit trading system which, the UN claims, could deliver $3.64trn of global wealth.

Inge Kaul, a special adviser at the UNDP, said: "The way we run our economies today is vastly expensive and inefficient because we don't manage risk well and we don't prevent crises." She downplayed concerns over up-front costs and interest payments for the new-fangled financial devices. "The gains in terms of development would outweigh those costs. Money is wasted because we dribble aid, and the costs of not solving the problems are much, much higher than what we would have to pay for getting the financial markets to lend the money."

The UNDP is determined to ensure globalisation, which has generated vast wealth for multinational companies, benefits the poorest in society.

It urges politicians to embrace some groundbreaking schemes put in place in the past 12 months to tackle global warning, poverty and disease, based on working with the global markets to share out the risk.

These include a pilot international finance facility (IFF) to "front load" $4bn of cash for vaccines by borrowing money against pledges of future government aid.

The scheme, which is backed by the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, was born out of a proposal by Gordon Brown for a larger scheme to double the total aid budget to $100bn a year.

In an endorsement of the report, Mr Brown said: "This shows how we can equip people and countries for a new global economy that combined greater prosperity and fairness both within and across nations."

The UNDP says rich countries should build on this and go further. It proposes six schemes to harness the power of the markets:

* Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through pollution permit trading; net gain $3.64trn.

* Cutting poor countries' borrowing costs by securing the debts against the income from stable parts of their economies; net gain $2.90trn.

* Reducing government debt costs by linking payments to the country's economic output; net gain $600bn.

* An enlarged version of the vaccine scheme; net gain (including benefits of lower mortality) $47bn.

* Using the vast flow of money from migrants back to their home country to guarantee; net gain $31bn.

* Aid agencies underwriting loans to market investors to lower interest rates; net gain $22bn.

Professor Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and a staunch critic of the way globalisation harms the poor, said: "Globalisation has meant the closer integration of countries, and that in turn has meant a greater need for collective action.

"One of the most important areas of failure is the environment. Without government intervention, firms and households have no incentive to limit their pollution." He said a global public finance system would force countries to acknowledge the external damage their policies had, "the most important being global climate change".

Solving the environmental crisis tops the UN's $7trn wish-list. It calls for an international market to trade pollution permits that would encourage rich countries to cut pollution and hit their targets under the Kyoto protocol.

But - and the UN admits it is a big "but" - the US would have to sign up to Kyoto and carbon trading to achieve the $3.64trn that it believes the system would deliver over time.

"We are dealing with a global problem as pollution can only be dealt with internationally," Ms Kaul said. Richard Sandor, the head of the Chicago Climate Exchange, added: "Many encouraging signs are emerging. When the business case is clear, private entrepreneurs step forward."

But, the proposal is unlikely to get support from some green groups who believe that action to curb consumption, rather than market incentives, are the way to reduce carbon emissions.

Andrew Simms, director of the New Economics Foundation, said it left unanswered questions over how these markets would be managed and how the benefits and costs would be distributed. "We have nothing against markets so it would be missing the point to get into a pro- or anti-market stance. The point is how you distribute the benefits."
He said the Nineties, the zenith decade for globalisation, had seen just 60 cents out of every $100 worth of growth reach the poorest in society, compared with the $2.20 in the Eighties.

He said a pollution trading regime had the potential to deliver "enormous" benefits to poor countries, but said the UN report failed to show a detailed plan.

"Our view is that you have to cap pollution, allocate permits and then you can trade. But it depends on how it is set up. Because you are dealing with a global commons of the atmosphere, the danger is that you could be effectively dealing in stolen goods."

He said a system set up now to trade in pollution permits could end up permanently depriving poor countries that joined the system further down the road.

International problems - and solutions

PANDEMIC DISEASES

Millions of people across the developing world have died from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/Aids, as well as from other pandemics. Vaccines needed to avert them require much-needed investment.

SOLUTION: An advance commitment by rich countries to buy $3bn (£1.7bn) worth of vaccines would be enough to encourage pharmaceutical giants to invest in finding medicines that would eliminate these pandemics.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Vaccines are needed but more should be done in the meantime. Extra aid is needed for simple tools such as mosquito nets that would curb spread of malaria.

PARIAH STATES

Big business and global money ignore countries where they see the risk of conflict outweighing their potential profit margins.

SOLUTION: Guarantees by international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund to lower the cost of borrowing for poor nations by underwriting investors' loans to conflict-torn states.

SAVING: $22bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.

Hitting a commitment made in the 1960s of 0.7 per cent of GDP would unlock $140bn a year.

NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY

Once great nations such as Brazil and Argentina were reduced to the status of beggars after poor economic policy combined with debts with national and international lenders.

SOLUTION: A system to enable countries to take loans linked to their average economic growth rate to ensure that they do not have to cut public spending to raise the money to borrow needed funds during the hard times.

SAVING: $600bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: A system to allow countries to seek protection from their creditors in the same way that US companies can take so-called Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

SPECULATIVE INVESTORS

Poor countries suffer most from swings in investment tastes by the big global investors that means money can leave as soon as it arrives.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to buy "insurance policies" against big swings in growth that would ensure that they did not have to cut public spending every time. In 1997 it wreaked havoc across South-east Asia.

SAVING: $2,900bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Curb speculative investment by imposing a tax on foreign exchange transactions aimed at destabilising a currency. It could directly raise funds for development while preventing the worst excesses of the markets.

GLOBAL WARMING

Scientists believe human activity has led to climate change and disappearing Arctic ice. The world's poor also have to live with lethal storms and floods.

UN SOLUTION: A system of international trading in permits to allow pollution that would encourage countries to cut their emission of greenhouse gases so they can sell their "right to pollute" to other states. UNDP says it is more effective than just setting targets.

SAVING: $3,620bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international approach is needed but one that prevents people from causing harm by setting pollution targets rather than trying to bribe them not to. Also agree global airline tax.

BRAIN DRAIN

Millions of skilled workers leave their home countries every year in search of a better life in the West. In some states nine out 10 professionals have left.

SOLUTION: Enable countries to borrow on the open markets against the money workers send home. The capital would be used to invest in the country to build infrastructure that would discourage people from leaving.

SAVING: $31bn

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: An international code of ethical guidelines overseen by bodies such as the World Health Organisation (for doctors and nurses) to monitor the harm that migration of professionals causes.

Bill Clinton, in 2000, said:

".....National Sovereignty could no longer be used as an excuse to prevent the intervention by the UN, to provide "security" for people inside National boundaries."

Other supporters of UN led one world, are: UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Bill & Melinda Gates.

I believe all of this started years ago, and is the reason no one wants to close our borders......according to the UN, it will be a no borders world.

Get us out of the UN and get the UN out of this country. Also take Bill and Melinda Gates and Clinton with you!!!!

You are correct, this started years ago and it's time to put a stop to it.

I watched Newt and Hillery sitting side by side at a Davos conference and listened to Newt bragging that he and he alone is responsible for getting NAFTA passed.

To think that some people still toss his hat in the ring to be our next president (small p), makes me sick.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION: Sometimes large volumes of cash are needed and this is one. Live8 showed there was huge support among taxpayers for higher aid to countries in distress.

Yeah right!

I wonder why it is I think they mean the AMERICAN taxpayer???
Can you imagine the boondoggle that would occur if this sort of funds were placed in these 'trustworthy' hands?? I shiver at the thought...they were incompetent with the Iraq Oil for Food program...and it was tiny compared to this....

I hear this little voice in my ear...'Give me all your money...I think you're crazy'

RR

"I watched Newt and Hillery sitting side by side at a Davos conference and listened to Newt bragging that he and he alone is responsible for getting NAFTA passed."

Ah, yes, Newt. The chamelion. He just recently signed a letter published in the WSJ supporting Bush's amnesty along with Grover Norquist, Cesar Conda, TAmara Jacoby. Then he turns around and tells us he will save us. He
is wrapped up with Abramoff as well.

NO MORE NEWT!

Aunt B, thanks for reminding me of that manifesto Newt signed, with all those other creeps?


I remember reading that manifesto in the Arizona Republic, 6 months, or a year ago (maybe longer)? i was amazed the insulting implications it contained, and the blanket condoning of lawlessness. This letter contains all anyone needs to know what a pathetic president Newt would be.




Newt is a totally sell out on this issue, although other reasons make him a hopeless presidential candidate. He fits in at Davos.


Here's the text (which ill dissect later, if their isnt a thread about it already):

conservative manifesto for solving border woes
What some of the best-known conservatives have to say about illegal immigration, and why Arizona should listen
Aug. 15, 2004

Signatories (Affiliations for identification purposes only)

Jeff Bell, principal, Capital City Partners
Larry Cirignano, president, CatholicVote.org
Cesar Conda, former assistant for domestic policy to Vice President Dick Cheney
Francis Fukuyama, dean of faculty, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
Richard Gilder, Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. LLC
Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives
Ed Goeas, president and CEO, the Tarrance Group
Kerri Houston, vice president of policy, Frontiers of Freedom
Tamar Jacoby, senior fellow, the Manhattan Institute
Jack Kemp, 1996 Republican vice presidential nominee, co-director of Empower America
Steve Moore, senior fellow, Cato Institute
Mike Murphy, Republican strategist
Grover Norquist, president, Americans for Tax Reform
Richard W. Rahn, senior fellow, the Discovery Institute
The last thing Arizonans need is someone from out of state telling them about the problems caused by illegal immigration. Arizonans know all about those problems - better than anyone else in the country.

But what Arizonans may not know is that a growing number of conservatives, in state and out, believe there is a solution: not trying futilely to seal the border or punish immigrants, but rather a guest worker program backed by tough enforcement.

It's easy to forget in our polarized political era, but you don't have to be liberal to embrace immigration reform. On the contrary, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush to several members of the Arizona congressional delegation, conservatives have been in the vanguard of those pressing for a better border policy.

Conservatives believe in legal immigration. Newcomers seeking a better life for their families provide the workers our economy needs to grow - and will need increasingly in future decades. They rebuild our urban neighborhoods, reinvigorate our culture, reinforce our patriotic spirit. It's no accident that the 1990s boom occurred during a period of high immigration or that new immigrants, particularly Hispanic immigrants, figure so prominently among those fighting and dying in Iraq.

Conservatives oppose illegal immigration. We know about the disruptions that an unregulated and unauthorized flow of people can cause in a border state like Arizona, annoying property owners and burdening public facilities, particularly hospitals. Most important, we understand the corrosive effect that widespread, routine illegality is sure to have on the rule of law.

But the current "enforcement only" approach to illegal immigration has not worked. Between 1990 and 2000, the Border Patrol nearly tripled in size, yet the illegal population living in the United States increased by 5.5 million. Clinging to the status quo in the face of common sense is neither conservative nor principled.

As conservatives, we believe that the only solution is a more honest immigration policy: an approach that acknowledges international labor markets and seeks to manage the migrant flow, not simply pretend it doesn't exist. Only a more honest policy can hope to provide the workers we need, while restoring the rule of law and helping us secure our borders against genuine national security threats.

Other voices, also claiming to be conservative, propose a very different approach. They suggest we seal the border or radically cut back on the number of foreigners we admit. Some talk of using military means; others would go so far as to try to deport the 8 million to 10 million illegal immigrants already here.

These suggestions can sound appealing, particularly in a border state like Arizona. But they aren't solutions - they're wishful thinking.

How, exactly, would we as a nation seal our borders, and how would we man our economy if we did? Who would labor in the fields to get our crops out of the ground? Who would take the low-paying jobs in our hotels and hospitals?

Few native-born Americans now raise their children to do work like that: We aspire to better - and we're lucky that we can. And even if we could stomach the kinds of draconian measures some suggest on the border, that would only drive more of the migrant flow underground, with more of the consequences Arizonans know so well: the disruptive transients, the soaring service costs and the deadly violence associated with human smuggling.

In other words, the so-called solutions of those who oppose realistic reform would only entrench the status quo.

Conservatives, both in the White House and Congress, have a better answer. Arizona Reps. Jeff Flake and Jim Kolbe and Sen. John McCain led the way last summer with a groundbreaking legislative proposal; then, in January, Bush outlined a set of principles that picked up on several of their best ideas. The centerpiece of both packages: a guest worker program combined with a transitional provision for those already here and working - a measure that would allow them to come in out of the shadows and earn the right to a legal job.

Of course, an even more realistic policy will be only as good as its enforcement, and conservatives must work to make sure that enforcement is not only tough but smart.

Adequate manpower on the border, state-of-the-art biometric vetting and databases, an all-out crackdown on smuggling cartels: These are the basic components, but not all that's needed. Most important, the prevailing norm must change. Once we introduced a more realistic law - one that provided adequate legal avenues for those seeking work and those who employ them - there would be no excuse for anyone who broke it.

Of all the benefits that would come with more realistic limits, none is more important than the effect they would have on national security. As it is, our unrealistic policy guarantees that hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants cross the border every year without background checks of any kind. Wouldn't it be better to know who they are - to learn their real names and vet their identities and provide authorities with the means to track them down in the United States if needs be? And then, once we have a grip on the vast bulk of newcomers who mean no harm, border agents, who now spend most of their time apprehending future farmworkers, waiters and maids, could turn their attention to intercepting the dangerous few who pose a genuine security threat.

Many Arizonans are angry, and understandably so. They want to send a message to Washington that the status quo cannot continue. But symbolic measures that can't hope to solve the problem will not help. Nor will voting to punish elected officials who have had the courage to stand up for realistic reform. On the contrary, that kind of "message" can only backfire, discouraging others, conservatives and liberals alike, from taking the political risks that will inevitably be necessary if we as a nation are to craft a truly effective solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

©2004 The Arizona Republic


Does anyone want me to dissect that manifesto, in it's own thread?